WOODS DAVY | Clouds From the Sea

Scott Richards Contemporary Art is pleased to present Clouds from the Sea, the San Francisco premiere exhibition of works by acclaimed Southern California sculptor Woods Davy. Opening during San Francisco Art Week, the exhibition coincides with FOG Design+Art Fair and will be celebrated with an artist reception on Saturday, January 24, 2026, from 4–6 PM.

Renowned for his gravity-defying stone sculptures, Davy presents works from his seminal Cantamar series—fluid, cantilevered assemblages composed of raw stones gathered from the Pacific Ocean.     Each stone is selected through a ritual of attentive searching, becoming part of what art critic Shana Nys Dambrot describes as “a kind of wild collaboration between the artist and Nature, predicated on a mutual attention to chance and destiny.” Shaped by tides and time, the stones rise in poised, arcing formations that recalibrate perceptions of weight, balance, and material presence.

“I love the transformation of the isolated stones I pull from the sea into contemplative, cantilevered arcs, floating like clouds above the sea. In my recently published monograph, there is a section titled From the Sea, which features the Cantamar works. They have been described by many as floating like clouds. That observation is certainly true, although they are more than what they look like. They are what they do. These gravity defying, cloud-like sculptures express a feeling of serenity, which transcends form. That is what I experience, and I hope the viewer does as well.”
Woods Davy

For more than forty years, Davy has worked with natural materials in precarious balancing acts informed by a distinctive Western Zen sensibility. Emerging from a post-1960s lineage attentive to Eastern philosophy and ecological awareness, his sculptures honor materials in their unaltered states while revealing what art historian Holly Myers describes as “a meditative reverence.”

The series takes its name from Cantamar, a small coastal town in Mexico whose name translates as “song of the sea.” Rounded and smoothed by ocean tumbling, stones in hues of grey, pink, red, ivory, lava-black, and mica are assembled using concealed steel supports, allowing the stones themselves to guide the composition. The resulting sculptures create a cyclical visual rhythm, encouraging sustained contemplation as form and gravity appear momentarily suspended. Reflecting on his process, Davy notes, “The stones told me what to do. I listened. They started to float, creating a feeling of weightlessness despite their heavy nature.”

This balance of wonder and calm was showcased in Denying Gravity: Woods Davy and the Assembly of Stones at the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento in 2024, and is further explored in the recently published Woods Davy monograph that accompanied the exhibition. A forthcoming two-person exhibition at Laguna Art Museum in 2027, titled “Sticks and Stones,” will bring Woods Davy together with fellow contemporary abstract artist Charles Arnoldi.

Davy’s sculptures are included in major museum collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, Weisman Museum of Art and Hammer Art Museum in Southern California, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, and Qatar Museums, Doha, and significant civic and corporate collections, including the State of California, University of Southern California, City of Beverly Hills, Cedars Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, IBM Corporation, Bank of America, and Toyota Motor Corporation, among many others. The artist lives and works in Venice, California.